Library; the text, with slight variations,
was printed in the Boston Gazette, March 29, 1773, in the
Massachusetts Spy, March 25, 1773, and in Boston Record
Commissioner's Report, vol. xviii., pp. 120-125.]

At a legal Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, at Faneuil-Hall on Monday the 8th of March 1773, and continued by Adjournment to the 23d instant.

Mr. Samuel Adams acquainted the Moderator, that he was directed by a Committee (of which he was Chairman) to make a report; and the same was read as follows, viz.1

The Committee appointed "to consider what is proper to be done, to vindicate the Town from the gross Misrepresentations & groundless Charges in his Excellencys Message to both Houses" of the General Assembly "respecting the Proceedings of the Town at their last Meeting", beg Leave to report.

That having carefully looked over the several Speeches of the
Governor of the Province, to the Council and House of
Representatives, in the last Session of the General Assembly,
they find that his Excellency has plainly insinuated;

First, that the said Meeting of the Town was illegal in itself.

Secondly, that the Points therein determind were such, as the Law
gives the Inhabitants of Towns in their Corporate Capacity no
Power to act upon; and therefore that the Proceedings of said
Meeting were against Law. And,

Thirdly, that the Inhabitants thus assembled advanced and afterwards publishd to the World, such Principles as have a direct Tendency to alienate the Affections of the People from their Sovereign: And he plainly asserts, that they "denied in the most express terms the Supremacy of Parliament, and invited every other Town & District in the Province to adopt the same Principles."

We have therefore thought it necessary to recur to the Methods taken for calling said Meeting. And they find that three Petitions were prefer'd to the Select Men, signd by 198 respectable Freeholders and Inhabitants, making Mention of a Report that then prevaild, & which since appears to have been well grounded, that Salaries were allowd to be paid to the Justices of the Superior Court of the Province by Order of the Crown; whereby they were to be made totally independent of the General Assembly and absolutely dependent on the Crown; and setting forth their Apprehensions that such an Establishment would give a finishing Stroke to the System of Tyranny already begun, and compleat the Ruin of the Liberties of the People. And therefore earnestly requesting the Selectmen to call a Meeting, that this Matter might be duly considerd by the Town, and such Measures taken as the Necessity and Importance thereof required. Whereupon the Selectmen issued a Warrant for calling a Meeting accordingly. All which was strictly agreable to the Laws of this Province, and the Practice of this and other Towns from the earliest times.

By an Act of this Province made in the fourth year of William & Mary it is enacted, that "when and so often as there shall be Occasion of a Town Meeting for any Business of publick Concernment to the Town there to be done, the Constable or Constables of such Town, by Order of the Selectmen or major Part of them, or of the Town Clerk by their Order in each respective Town within this Province shall warn a Meeting of such Town" &c.2 And by another Act made in the 2 Geo. I. it is enacted that "When and so often as ten or more of the Freeholders of any Town shall signify under their hands to the Selectmen their desire to have any Matter or thing inserted into a Warrant for calling a Town Meeting, the Selectmen are hereby required to insert the same in the next Warrant they shall issue for the Calling a Town Meeting."3

But were there no such Laws of the Province or should our Enemies pervert these & other Laws made for the same Purpose, from their plain and obvious Intent and Meaning, still there is the great and perpetual Law of Self preservation to which every natural Person or corporate Body hath an inherent Right to recur. This being the Law of the Creator, no human Law can be of force against it: And indeed it is an Absurdity to suppose that any such Law could be made by Common Consent, which alone gives validity to human Laws. If then the "MATTER OR THING" viz the fixing Salaries to the Offices of the Judges of the Superior Court as aforesaid, was such as threatned the Lives, Liberties and Properties of the People, which we have the Authority of the greatest Assembly of the Province to affirm, The Inhabitants of this or any other Town had certainly an uncontrovertable right to meet together, either in the Manner the Law has prescribed, or in any other orderly Manner, joyntly to consult the necessary Means of their own Preservation and Safety. The Petitioners wisely chose the Rule of the province Law, by applying to the Selectmen for a Meeting; and they, as it was their Dudty to do, followed the same Rule and called a Meeting accordingly. We are therefore not a little suprizd, that his Excellency, speaking of this and other principal Towns, should descend to such an artful Use of Words, that a "NUMBER of Inhabitants have assembled together, and having ASSUMED the Name of legal Town Meetings" &c. Thereby appearing to have a Design to lead an inattentive Reader to believe, that no Regard was had to the Laws of the Province in calling these Meetings, and consequently to consider them as illegal & disorderly.

The Inhabitants being met, and for the Purpose aforesaid, the Points determind, his Excellency says, "were such as the Law gives the Inhabitants of Towns in their CORPORATE Capacity no Power to act upon." It would be a sufficient Justification of the Town to say, that no Law FORBIDS the Inhabitants of Towns in their corporate Capacity to determine such Points as were then determined. And if there was no positive legal Restraint upon their Conduct, it was doing them an essential injury, to represent it to the World as ILLEGAL. Where the Law makes no special Provision for the common Safety, the People have a Right to consult their own Preservation; and the necessary Means to withstand a most dangerous attack of arbitrary Power.4 At such a time, it is but a pitiful Objection to their thus doing, that the Law has not expressly given them a Power to act upon such Points. This is the very language of Tyranny: And when such Objections are offerd, to prevent the Peoples meeting together in a Time of publick Danger, it affords of it self just Grounds of Jealousy that a Plan is laid for their Slavery.

The Town enterd upon an Inquiry into the Grounds of a Report, in which the common Safety was very greatly interested. They made their Application to the Governor, a fellow Citizen as well as the first Magistrate of the Province; but they were informd by his Excellency, that "it was by no means proper for him" "to acquaint them whether he had or had not receivd any Advices relating to the publick Affairs of the Government of the Province." Their next Determination was, to petition the Governor, that the General Assembly might be allowd to meet at the time to which it them stood prorogud: But his Excellency refused to grant this Request, lest it should be "encouraging the Inhabitants of other Towns to assemble" "to consider of the Necessity or Expediency of a Session of the General Assembly." Hitherto the Town had determind upon no Point but only that of petitioning the Governor. And will his Excellency or any one else affirm, that the Inhabitants of this or any other Town, have not a Right in their corporate Capacity to petition for a Session of the General Assembly, merely because the Law of this Province, that authorizes Towns to assemble, does not expressly make that the Business of a Town Meeting? It is the Declaration of the Bill of Rights, founded in5 Reason, that it is the